10 Designers Who Put the Body At the Center of Their Work
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Camille FreestoneWed, April 29, 2026 at 8:19 PM UTC
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Designers Who Explore the Body in Their WorkGetty Images
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Met Gala themes always pose an interesting, rather open-ended question. This year’s exhibit is titled “Costume Art,” but the official memo dictates that the exhibition will be built around this idea of the “dressed body.” It will be organized into sections like the “naked body” or the “pregnant body” in order to highlight not only the indivisible connection between clothing and the body but also the complex interplay between artistic representations of the body and fashion as an embodied artform.” So even though the official dress code is “Fashion is Art,” the body will still likely play heavily into many attendees’ rationales when selecting a look.
On one end of the spectrum, this task could quickly skew “naked dress.” Think: the Donna Karan slip Carrie Bradshaw wore in the first season of Sex and the City, the one likely responsible for coining the term. Or, more aptly the barely-there dress that belonged to the late Marilyn Monroe that Kim Kardashian in 2022. On the other, it could favor designers who manipulate the natural form. Take, for instance, Rei Kawakubo’s iconic “Lumps and Bumps” collection for Comme des Garcons for Spring 1997—that’s one fashion nerds everywhere would love to see featured next week. And in between, you’ll find contemporary, emerging designers like Dilara Findikoglu and Zoe Gustavia who both expose and distort the human shape as a method of critique and celebration.
All designers deal with the body; it’s an inevitability of dressing people. But ahead, we’ve counted 10 designers, from the established to the emerging, whose work engages primarily with the human form, both celebrating and manipulating, in all manners of expression.
Azzedine Alaïa
Linda Evangelista walks in the Alaïa Spring 1990 runway showImages Press - Getty Images
Nicknamed the “King of Cling,” Azzedine Alaïa engineered innovative stretch fabrics into daring, body con silhouettes—most notably the bandage dress—that both hugged and celebrated the female form throughout the ‘80s, ‘90s, and early 2000s. Interpreters of his brand, including Pieter Mulier, have continued his legacy of putting the human form at the center of collections.
Elsa Schiaparelli and Daniel Roseberry at Schiaparelli
Bella Hadid wears Schiaparelli’s Lung dress by Daniel Roseberry at Cannes in 2021Stephane Cardinale - Corbis - Getty Images
At her eponymous label, Elsa Schiaparelli set a precedent of not only prioritizing the female form in her work, but of using symbols and motifs of the human body as tongue-in-cheek fodder for her designs like the “Skeleton” dress she made in collaboration with the surrealist artist Salvador Dali. Today, Daniel Roseberry has pushed even further into that space, embellishing his work with inside-out lungs, noses, even a crystal-embellished beating heart.
Duran Lantink
Duran Lantink’s Fall 2025 collectionVictor Virgile
Fashion’s enfant terrible Duran Lantink, who now helms Jean Paul Gaultier, has made waves in the fashion industry via his controversial subversions of the body. In the Fall 2025 collection for his eponymous label, he has dressed a female model in the facade of a man’s washboard abs and outfitted a male model with bouncing breasts. His work at JPG has included full unitards printed to resemble a man’s naked form.
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Thierry Mugler
Thierry Mugler’s Fall 1995 collectionVictor Virgile - Getty Images
In the 1970s, Thierry Mugler pioneered a special brand of body consciousness with his distorted feminine silhouettes of exaggerated shoulders and narrow skirts—everything looking straight out of a Helmut Newton photograph. As evidenced so well in iconic moments like George Michael’s “Too Funky” music video (for which he designed the costumes), Mugler outfitted ‘90s supermodels in latex catsuits and cutaway suits of armor. Today, Miguel Castro Freitas continues to interpret the dramatic silhouettes instilled in the house by his predecessor.
Demna
Gucci Fall 2026Isidore Montag - LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT
Throughout his early days at Vetements, his defining work at Balenciaga, and his recent appointment to Gucci, Demna has worked with and against the body in his oscillation between revealing and concealing. The provocateur's silhouettes, most notably at Balenciaga, are often either ultra oversized or tight, tight, tight. Just look at his most recent collection for Gucci that fetishized our contemporary obsession with fitness via ultra bodycon silhouettes clinging to super muscular figures.
Rei Kawakubo at Comme des Garçons
Comme des Garçons Spring 1997Guy Marineau - Getty Images
Since founding Comme des Garçons in the early 1970s, Rei Kawakubo has been subverting traditional notions of the body in her thought-provoking collections. Though the most iconic instance of this has to be the “Lumps and Bumps” collection of Spring 1997, even her most recent Fall 2026 collection reimagined how clothing can distort the body.
Dilara Findikoglu
Julia Fox in a look from Dilara Findikoglu’s Spring 2025 collection at the 2025 Vanity Fair Oscar partyKarwai Tang - Getty Images
British designer Dilara Findikoglu’s work centers on the exploration of female restriction and liberation. Her collections feature elaborate corsetry, sculpted leathers, and clingy sheer fabrics often draped in elements both beautiful and grotesque, like seashells, safety pins, even faux hair. Regardless of construction, the female form is proactively engaged within all of her pieces.
Jackson Wiederhoeft
Wiederhoeft Spring 2026Courtesy of Wiederhoeft - LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT
Via his namesake brand, Jackson Wiederhoeft has reimagined the corset for the 21st century, outfitting an array of body types and gender identities. Despite working within the formalwear constraints of boning, corsetry, and crinoline, the designer prioritizes a deep respect and celebration of the body in all its forms.
Matières Fécales
Matières Fécales Fall 2025launchmetrics.com/spotlight - LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT
Matières Fécales’ Hannah Rose Dalton and Steven Raj Bhaskaran founders describe their approach to design as a “post-human” aesthetic. In a manner that is both grotesque and beautiful, their garments warp the natural human silhouette, drawing out the shoulders, inflating the hips, and elongating the sleeves. They outfit an array of body types and gender identities—and their provocative work is already Met-gala-red-carpet friendly as it’s designed to go viral.
Zoe Gustavia Anna Whalen
Zoe Gustavia Anna Whalen Fall 2025Christian Defonte / Courtesy of Zoe Gustavia Anna Whalen - LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT
For Zoe Whalen’s recent Fall 2026 collection for her line Zoe Gustavia Anna Whalen, titled “Birthing Circle,” she explored the female body and the extent to which it can adapt in pregnancy and childbirth—a “love letter to a body,” as she described it. Many of the gowns from this collection, with their twisted, see-through fabrics, manipulated hips, and deconstructed corsetry, would fit the theme inherently.
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